


Victory Kids

by cadesama



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Intertrilogy, Pre-TFA, meeting as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:14:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadesama/pseuds/cadesama
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Poe doesn't hate big rebel anniversary celebrations -- they're a good chance to meet other victory kids. Like Ben Solo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Victory Kids

Poe tugged at his stiff collar because he _couldn’t_ mess with his hair. Not when his mom, Shara, had just spent ten minutes lacquering it and combing it straight. He leaned onto one foot, pulling on his collar, as he peeked into the little mirror in front of the work console of their temporary quarters on _Home One_. His mother stood properly in front of it, finishing her own hair, and cast a look down at him. She put one hand on his shoulder, carefully pushing him back upright.

“Don’t fuss,” she told him gently.

Poe gave an aggrieved sigh and dropped his hands to his side, while she smiled. She chucked him under the chin.

“You look good.” Well, yeah, Poe thought. He’d better. Shara turned from him to call into the tight space between the room she was sharing with Poe's father, Kes, and the fresher that he kept darting into, “In twenty, Sergeant.”

“Minutes, Lieutenant?”

“You wish! The shuttle’s waiting.”

Kes popped his head around the corner. He was dressed much the same as Shara, in a dress uniform bedecked with medals. Poe knew the meaning of each one, all their missions. There were several they had in common, but the most important was the gold patch they both worse on their sleeve: for Endor. For today.

“It’s not a mission, Kes. iI you’ve forgotten something, I’m pretty sure you can go without.”

Poe heard his father grumble something and then, “Found it!”

He was back into the main room in less than a nanosecond, uniform hat perched on his head. Poe eyed it jealously. Kes had the same hair style going that he did, but he got to cover it up. Catching his eye, his father winked at him. Oh, he knew. He definitely knew.

Kes extended his arm to Shara, who held out her hand to Poe. He pulled a face.

“Too grown up for that?” she asked.

“Yes,” Poe said firmly.

Shara placed her hand on his shoulder briefly, though she had to crouch a little to do it. That alone seemed to take away the sting of his request.

They made their way down to the hangar, walking quickly. _Home One_ had been decommissioned years ago, Poe knew. They brought it out of retirement for the anniversary because someone thought it was a fitting touch to ferry dignitaries and veterans back to Endor on the flagship that had won victory for the Rebel cause. As such, the inside of the ship gleamed like none he’d ever seen before and Poe couldn’t catch sight of a single person who was actually at work. Politicians lined the halls, some bored and some excited, all talking idly of the holiday as they waited for their own shuttles down to the moon.

Deck hands scurried around the hangar when they finally arrived, making Poe feel a little more at home. He wasn’t used to all of this fuss. Yavin IV wasn’t like this – of the few people who had colonized it, none wore anything so fancy as the get ups he’d seen just walking the hallways. One, Shara pointed out to him as being the latest fashion on Naboo. They had a lot of time to spend on buttons and laces, he decided.

His mother’s eyes watched the snubfighters being prepped for an airshow as they followed a deck hand out to their shuttle.

“Next time,” Kes teasingly promised her.

“No time and you know it.”

“Maybe if you ask nicely, Mom,” Poe put in.

“It can’t hurt,” Kes agreed.

Shara gave a slightly indignant huff. She gestured across the deck, to another small group of people. The four of them, three human and one Wookiee, stood at the base of a freighter even Poe wasn’t so sure he’d want to go up in. A grin spread across his face as he recognized them – Chancellor Organa and her husband!

“I’m no more likely to get to fly with the entertainment brigade than the Chancellor is.”

Poe gaped, tuning out his parents’ good-natured argument, as he stared at the people across the deck. It looked like they too were arguing, but considerably less happily than Shara and Kes. The Chancellor was leaning up, finger pointed into her husband’s face, while he looked away, annoyance plain on his face. The Wookiee was torn between gruff laughs that echoed over to Poe and occasionally trying to tear the two of them apart. And, off to the side, there was a boy that seemed just about Poe’s age. He scuffed his toe against the deck plate, head down as he waited his parents out.

He, like his mother, was dressed in white Alderaani finery, a stark contrast to his father’s more casual clothes. His dad wasn’t even wearing a dress uniform, even though Poe was pretty sure he’d been a general in the war.

“Are they going down with us?” Poe blurted out.

He bit his lip after he said it. Obviously not. That was the Millennium Falcon and everyone knew that the Chancellor always flew in the Millennium Falcon.

“I heard the Alderaani delegation had something special planned for them,” Kes said.

“Really?” Shara asked. “Well, that explains that.”

“Explains what?” Poe asked.

Shara just shook her head silently, declining to answer. Poe kind of thought he knew anyway. His eyes followed the Chancellor as she stomped away from her husband, hand thrust out for her son to take.

They weren’t going to fly down on the Falcon, after all.

Kes quietly placed his hands on Poe’s shoulders and he glanced up, catching the cautioning look on his father’s face. It was rude to stare, yeah, he knew that.

He guided Poe onto their own shuttle now that they had the signal to board and, even before they had settled and strapped in, Poe had forgotten entirely about the Chancellor and her family. Instead, he spent the flight down to Endor trying to work up the nerve to wave to Wedge Antilles.

* * *

The ceremony was boring. The party was boring. Adults were boring.

The Ewok village, on the other hand, was _wizard_.

Ben glared sullenly up at Lor San Tekka, hoping the man would just fall into a black hole or something. Then maybe he could actually leave and go explore the village. It was bad enough that, as the head of the Alderaani delegation for ‘the preservation and restoration of tradition’, he’d accompanied Leia and Ben down to the surface, but he hadn’t left their side since the ceremony. Ben didn’t even get why he was here, or why the Alderaanians were doing so much. It wasn’t like this was the first Death Star anniversary. And why did it always have to be about him and mom – couldn’t they go bother Uncle Luke for once?

“And you, young prince, what did you think of the ceremony?” San Tekka asked. He had a kindly look in his eye, but Ben thought he sounded nothing less than condescending.

“I’m not a prince.”

San Tekka took that too well, eyebrows merely raising.

“You are your mother’s son. That is enough.”

Ben shrugged. Wasn’t enough for him, or anyone who wasn’t Alderaanian. They were just too polite to actually say it.

San Tekka smiled indulgently and ruffled Ben’s hair. Ben braced against it, wishing he was allowed to smack the old man’s hand away. Even if Leia didn’t like him – and Ben knew she didn’t, he could feel it – she still thought social graces were too important for that. Dad would think it’s funny, Ben thought. He didn’t exactly like that either, but he usually at least felt like they were on the same side when it came to Alderaanians.

Ben felt his mother’s disapproval in the Force, quickly evaporating into sympathy. She reached out gently and he took it as an apology. It wasn’t much fun, standing for hours at her side, through speeches and fireworks he couldn’t see and not even getting a chance to meet the other kids here. She knew that.

He sent back his own awkward apology of sorts. They were important. He got that.

Ben didn’t mind the feeling of her hand brushing through his hair, righting what Tekka had put askew. It was nice.

He stepped back from her abruptly, looking down and away.

“Is it okay if I go find dad?”

“Of course it is, Ben.” She knelt with grace that was purely royal, nothing Jedi of it at all, and ducked her head to catch his eye. “I may be fighting with your dad, but that doesn’t mean I’d ever want you to be mad at him. _I’m_ not even mad at him.”

“Then why are you fighting?” he asked. His hands balled at his side in frustration. Uncle Luke said to let go of his negative feelings, but he didn’t really know how.

Leia sighed. Her fingers pushed a lock of hair out of Ben’s eyes.

“We just see things differently sometimes. We have different priorities.”

Ben nodded. He’d heard that refrain a lot, back when Leia ran for the Chancellorship, when they pulled him out of school for tutoring instead, whenever the topic of _what next_ came up. Leia had a lot of goals for the Republic and for their family and Han kind of … didn’t. He always said he just wanted to see what came next, that you couldn’t control the future. You were doomed to disappointment when you tried.

He wasn’t wrong, but then, neither was she.

“It’s just –“ Ben shook his head and frowned, looking down.

“What, Ben?” she urged.

He pushed the feeling away. It was stupid to say that he didn’t like it because it felt bad. He was too old to complain that he just felt bad with nothing more to it than that. He understood political realities and he didn’t need another explanation about how adults had complex lives.

“Nothing,” he said instead. He looked up at her, doing his best to clear his mind of the troubling thoughts, but the gnawing feelings of guilt and anger lingered like smoke over an extinguished flame. “Can I go, Mom? I didn’t even get to talk to Wicket.”

Leia didn’t call him on the changed plan – not to talk to Han, but Wicket – and leaned in, kissing him on the forehead.

“Of course.”

Ben forced a smile for her and then took off past her, glad to put the dumb celebration behind him.

He did not, as it turned out, manage to find Wicket, which he probably could have predicted. Wicket was the village elder now and pretty instrumental in the anniversary ceremonies, giving a long speech that even C-3PO hadn’t managed to ruin.

Ben eyed the long, thick branches of the trees above him, calculating how hard it would be to jump up. He wasn’t all that good at using the Force for physical stuff yet. His balance was pretty good, so even if he climbed up high, he knew he wouldn’t fall, but there was a big question about how he’d even get up there. Considering his options, he turned his gaze downward, peering over the edge of the rope bridge to the forest floor. The light from the planet’s other moons glimmered on the shore of a wide lake.

He ducked under the rope, holding it behind him as he leaned forward, measuring the distance down.

“Hey!”

Ben yelped in surprise, hands popping open despite absolutely everything in the Force screaming at him to hold on. He just barely managed to turn, eyes locking with another dark haired boy, maybe a year or two older than him, before he pitched forward and tumbled to the forest floor.

* * *

Poe stared in shock before running to the bridge, making it rock wildly beneath his footsteps. His heart pounded in his chest as he wheeled backward, hands on the rope as he tried to pull the bridge back, tried to steady himself, even as he craned his neck to see just how far the Chancellor’s son had fallen.

Far. But – Poe shook himself and then rubbed at his eyes. The boy was dusting off the white knees of his formal trousers, shaking out his long white coat. He looked upward at Poe, picking a leaf out of his hair.

“What was that for?” he called up irritably.

“How did you –“ Poe stopped. He knew about the Force, sort of. It’d been a big part of the anniversary celebration. He just forgot sometimes that it was more than a nice thing you said to people before they left. Sometimes, the Force actually was with someone. He grinned, even as he shouted in response, “Sorry!”

Immediately, he started looking for his own way down. He definitely wasn’t going to risk jumping, even though that did seem pretty cool. He’d been in big trouble the last time he took the fast way down off the top of one of the temples on Yavin IV and ended up in a bacta brace for his broken leg.

The nearest tree the platform was anchored to was actually circled by planks, forming a staircase. Poe brightened as his eyes fell on it and he dashed off the bridge and down, only half aware that Shara and Kes probably wouldn’t be pleased by him taking the stairs three at a time in what was quickly coming to be pitch blackness. He looked up to the Ewok village, torch light only filtering down through the gap between the tree and the village walkways.

Poe managed to stumble on the last step, but the other boy was suddenly at his side, catching him by his arms.

“Thanks!”

The boy let him go awkwardly. Up close, Poe realized that he was probably a couple years older and felt instantly contrite.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to startle you. Sorry about that. Are you alright?”

The Chancellor’s son was taken aback by the question, but eventually nodded.

“Good.” Poe thrust out his hand. The other boy’s handshake was careful, but firm. He locked eyes with Poe, leaving him feeling slightly off balance when he let go. The kid was entirely too serious, that was for sure. “I’m Poe – Poe Dameron. Shara and Kes are my mom and dad.”

“Ben. My mom and dad are—”

Poe cut him off with a laugh.

“I know who your parents are.”

Ben pressed his lips together. Nodded.

Poe felt his smile slip, but he tried again, looking up to the bridge above them, “What we you doing up there? You looked like you were going to jump.”

He could see moonlight through the treetops and new streaks of light every time the X-Wings of the air show did another pass. It wasn’t quite the spectacle it had been earlier, but they did still keep up tricks that were worth watching for.

“I was thinking about it.”

“Party that bad?” Poe asked.

“You were there,” he replied, sounding a touch annoyed. “You left too.”

Poe stopped watching the X-Wings, turning to throw Ben a puzzled look. His expression quickly changed, from sulky to shamefaced, and he glanced away. Or maybe he was distracted? He made for the edge of the lake and, after a confused pause, Poe trotted to catch up to him.

The water reflected the fireworks in the sky. It looked really, really _cool_. Poe twisted to look back at the village, thinking it was too bad everyone was missing this, but then shrugged it off. He bet they were having their own fun and he wasn’t about to call for his mom right now.

Ben crouched down next to the water’s edge, fingers trailing through the crumpled, dead leaves. His coat swept through the dirt behind him, and Poe had to wonder how strict the Chancellor was. He would have been in trouble for dirtying up his clothes.

“Not very,” Ben replied. “Not about clothes, anyway.”

Poe jumped at the sound of the other boy’s voice.

“What?”

Ben ducked his head, shoulders very tense.

“Sorry, Dad says that’s rude.” And then he rose up, eyes blazing. “It’s not fair! Mom and Uncle Luke do it _all the time_.”

Poe’s mouth formed a word, but he’d actually been struck speechless. He blinked rapidly, hand coming up to massage his throat, and then cleared it a couple of times experimentally. Yeah, okay, he could still talk. He was just hanging out with an actual mindreader.

“Um.” Poe squared his shoulders, deciding actively that he was okay with this. The other kids had been boring and he wanted a friend. “It’s alright.”

* * *

Ben smiled at the other boy, Poe.

“Yeah?”

Poe slapped him on the shoulder; it reminded Ben of Dad and Chewie. He straightened, feeling happier and lighter for the comparison.

“Yeah!”

Ben let himself fall backwards, just a bit, plopping down onto the shore of the lake. Mom really didn’t care if he got his clothes dirty. Aside from how the droids would wash it, and aside from how he had plenty of clothes, she was usually pleased by the obvious implications of her son’s dirty clothes. That he was out playing with other children or, possibly better, rooting around on the Falcon with Dad, getting dirty fixing things.

He watched the light play over the ripples on the lake. He wasn’t great shakes at meditation, but moments like this, he kind of thought he knew what Uncle Luke was talking about. He could feel the beauty of this place, the serenity. A cool breeze blew across the lake, making the hair on the back of his neck prickle up.

There was something more, he realized.

The wind tugged at him and Ben turned his head, following its flow, frowning as he tried to figure out –

“Ten skips, beat that!” Poe crowed.

Ben parsed time in a quick slide show: Poe snatching up a flat, rounded stone, skimming it across the lake, turning proudly to him, backlit by the fireworks in the sky, and challenging him. He’d seen it all. He’d just been paying attention to something else entirely.

Poe flipped a rock his way and Ben grabbed it out of the air.

He looked to the lake, turning the stone over in his hand. It was pretty good. Better than he would have chosen for himself, since he wouldn’t have bothered trying to find one that would cause so little air resistance. Pulling his arm back, he snapped his wrist.

The stone skipped across the lake, ripples too faint to see by the time it finally sank into the water near the shore on the other side. Ben cocked his head, thinking. He bet he could get it all the way across if he tried.

Ben glanced up at Poe, suddenly aware that he might think this was cheating. But Poe just looked impressed, mouth slightly open and hand shading his eyes, like he was still going to see the stone skipping.

“How do you do that?” he asked.

“The Force.”

“Okay, but – can you show me?”

Ben pushed himself back to his feet, studying the other boy. He didn't know, really. He knew not everyone had the Force, but Uncle Luke had never taught him how to find out if someone else had it. It'd just always been there, for him. Mom and Uncle Luke were always within easy reach when he closed his eyes.

"Maybe," Ben replied uncertainly.

He held out his hand, in front of Poe's face, and squeezed his eyes shut, concentrating to look for that … whatever it was.

"Ow!" Poe cried.

Ben's eyes snapped open and he flinched back, stumbling into the lake. Water lapped at his ankles as he dropped his hand. Poe was rubbing at his forehead, face screwed up.

"I don't know what I did. I'm sorry!"

Poe tilted his head back and forth and Ben suddenly worried that he'd actually dislodged something, somehow. He brought his hands up, but he didn't know what to with them. But Poe apparently decided everything was in its place. He threw Ben a reassuring smile.

"I'm guessing that was a bad idea. It's fine. I'll skip rocks the old fashioned way – not everyone can be special."

Ben didn't know what to say to that. There was a part of him that was upset by Poe's kindness. He'd screwed up, but Poe was willing to let it go, to make _him_ feel better when he was the one who hurt _Poe_. That wasn't right.

"You don't want to be special," Ben said, through numb lips. He'd been biting them hard. "It's scary."

Poe was silent for a moment.

"How about," he started, upbeat, "I show you how to skip rocks for real and you stop cheating?"

"It's not cheating!"

Poe lifted his chin, expression perfectly cocky. You should be the Jedi, Ben thought, not me. He was just so good at moving on, brushing away the negative. Being good and true, even for people who didn't deserve it.

"It is! You've got a lot to learn. So, pay attention to _this_!"

Poe snatched up a new rock and whipped it across the lake. It made about five skips before plunking down embarrassingly into the water. But Poe propped both hands on his hips, chest out, proud of what he'd done and waiting for Ben to answer it.

Ben smiled and took up the largest, most unwieldy, least aerodynamic chunk of stone he could find. And then he skipped it half way across the lake. He nearly wrenched his shoulder, but Poe's howl of outrage was entirely worth it.

* * *

Ben was, for some reason, trying to argue that A-Wing maneuverability was inferior to B-Wings when Shara found the both of them.

"You're crazy!" Poe shouted, throwing his arms up. He caught his mom's eye and gestured to Ben, pleading his case. "Tell him he's crazy."

Shara didn't seem inclined to tell off the Chancellor's son, for some reason.

Ben crossed his arms smugly, as if that was any kind of endorsement of his position.

"I told you," he replied.

"Mom, you didn't hear what he was saying about Kuat Systems. They're the best ship designers in the galaxy and he was –"

Shara actually did look affronted, but managed to smooth her expression of her offended pilot's honor quickly. She held a hand up, cutting Poe off.

"Be that as it may," Poe shot Ben a look, "I think you've been off on your own quite long enough. Your father was worried."

"Aw, Mom, we're fine. We were right here the whole time!"

His mom was less than impressed by the excuse, but at least Poe didn't have the sense that he was in trouble.

"We've got a shuttle to catch in less than a hour. We're not staying down in the village for the night. Say your goodbyes – I'm sure we'll have a chance to see Ben and his family up on _Home One_ before they go back to the capital." She gave Ben a considering look. "Unless you'd like to come back with us now."

Ben shook his head quickly; the privilege of being the kid whose mom wasn't here right now and couldn't say, for sure, that it wasn't okay. Shara seemed a bit skeptical, but at the same time, she was equally aware of how close they were to the Ewok village. Literally a stone's throw, Poe thought.

"Mom knows I'm here," Ben told her. "And she can sense me anyway. It's fine."

"It's true, Mom, he was showing me how to use the Force!"

Shara cocked an eyebrow down at him. Didn't need the Force to know an exaggeration when she heard one.

"That's nice, dear. Now say your goodbyes," Shara reminded him.

Poe extended his hand to Ben again, this time using it to tug the other boy into a quick hug. He laughed when he caught Ben's expression, slapping him on the back one last time. He still wasn't really sure what he thought of him, beyond that he was better company than Ewoks and a good rock skipper, even if he was a massive cheat. His starfighter opinions were definitely suspect. The Force thing, though, he just didn't know.

"Bye, Ben," Poe said.

Ben raised his hand, looking all too solemn in the moonlight.

"Bye."

* * *

Ben did have the impulse to follow Poe and his mother back up to the village. He watched them ascend the tree-stairs, thinking he could easily dash up and join them, spend a little more time arguing the virtues of the B-Wing – which wasn't even getting into TIEs – before Poe had to go back up to the ship. But then he reconsidered. He'd left the party on purpose because he didn't really want to be there. Why go back?

The Alderaanians are up there, he reminded himself, and who even know if they had some kind of closing ceremony planned. He shuddered at the thought.

The wind swirled around him, sweeping past his shoulders, and Ben turned from the village. His eyes scanned out over the lake, and then around its edge. It was that same something from before and this time he recognized it. That was no wind drawing him forward.

Ben followed the call of the Force, walking into the night. It was easy to jump over the roots of trees, to see by the light of the setting moons, to press further into the forest until the scent of ash filled his nose.

He came to a clearing where even now, nothing grew.

The wind stirred a funeral pyre. Ben brought his sleeve up, covering his mouth as he stared.

It'd been cold, before, but now he could feel a fire, burning a decade in the past. He almost thought he could see it, from the corner of his eye. He knew this place. Uncle Luke told him, despite Mom's disapproval. Grandfather had turned back to the Light and, to honor him, Luke gave him a funeral befitting any Jedi – on this very world.

Ben could make out a shape in the ashes. His stomach twisted, in fear and fascination, as he walked closer. He bent down and came back up, covered in soot, with the mask of Darth Vader in his hands. He stared into the scuffed, ashen lenses of the eyes and for the first time, he heard the call.

It wasn't a feeling, but a voice. The chill of it struck Ben to the bone.

"You are no prince."

Ben closed his eyes, clutching the mask tighter. He pressed it against his chest to no avail. He couldn't shut out the voice. It wasn't Grandfather.

It wasn't.

It wasn't.

“No," it whispered, "You are no mere prince … you are inheritor of _so much more_.”

 


End file.
